He period up to 715 witnessed a huge expansion of the Arab Empire, as far as North Africa and Spain in the west, and as far as Sind and Transoxania in the east. The caliph Sulayman
(715—17) had hoped to extend these successes and to crown them with the capture of the ultimate prize, Constantinople, but a two-year siege in 717—18 ended in a total failure and the loss of most of the invasion force. This not only drew to a close the dream of adding Byzantium to the list of defeated enemies, but it also encouraged other peoples to challenge Arab suzerainty and contributed toward the stalling of the conquest juggernaut. Substantial defeats at the hands of the Franks, Khazars, Turks, and Indians in the 730s put limits on the extent of Arab rule. Then, in 740, Berber revolts erupted across North Africa, which resulted in the secession of segments of that region from Arab control and the emergence of local dynasties, a phenomenon that would spread across the empire in the ninth century.
The position of Byzantium had looked a little precarious following the loss of Carthage in 698 and a string of defeats in Anatolia in the ensuing decade. However, the competent emperor Leo (717—41) managed to keep the resolve of the Byzantines steady in the face of the Arab siege of their capital and, buoyed up by this success, he was able to complete the process begun by Constans and Constantine IV of ensuring that Byzantium had the strength and resources to survive and to some degree flourish for another few centuries. Leo capped his achievements with a victory in 740 against a large Arab army, comprising 20,000 cavalry, which had advanced into Phrygia, west central Anatolia, under the command of the renowned warrior 'Abdallah al-Battal. The Arabs were surrounded and massacred to a man; as one Christian observer noted, “such a disaster had never befallen the Arabs before.”1 After a century on the defensive, Byzantium had now regained its confidence and was willing once more to engage Arab armies in the field rather than just to cower in their fortresses. The Arabs were thus obliged to acknowledge, albeit tacitly and grudgingly, that the Byzantines, along with the Khazars, Franks, and Indians, were not, for the time being at least, going to be subjugated.
Yet this was no doom-and-gloom time for the Arab rulers. They were now beginning to feel comfortable with their newfound wealth and set about spending it on visual displays of their piety and power. Walid I (705-15) inaugurated this activity by erecting the elegant and beautiful mosque of Damascus (Figure 6.1) so that Muslims could feel proud that they had a prayer place to rival the splendid churches of the Christians.2 His successors followed eagerly in his footsteps, commissioning an impressive number of public and private structures. Sulayman “built palaces, gardens and mills” by the spring of Jericho, and contemporary Christians marveled at the many “villas, shops, hostels and gardens” constructed by the caliph Hisham (724—43).3 Many of these monumental edifices are still standing or have been recovered archaeologically and attest to a major building program by the Umayyads and their associates, a dramatic demonstration in stone of their earthly might (Figures 6.2 and 6.3). Their detractors would say, however, that too much power and wealth was in the hands of this one family: Walid, Sulayman, and Hisham were all sons of 'Abd al-Malik, as was Yazid II (720—24), and 'Umar II (717—20) and Marwan II (743—50) were his nephews. This narrow concentration of power ensured a stable succession for a while, but it also stoked increasing resentment, which
FIGURE 6.1 Courtyard entrance to prayer hall of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, commissioned ca. 706. © Alain George.
Culminated in a whole series of revolts in the 740s and the overthrow of the Umayyad family in 750 together with their network of Syrian supporters.
World History
